Just how messy is home birth?
Like many parents planning a home birth, one of the most likely questions
you'll have is just how messy does a home birth get. Read on to find out
what midwives and other home birthing mums think and to get some practical
clean-up tips.
Minimising mess
Childbirth in general and home birth in particular is surprisingly less
messy than you might think but there are ways to help minimise the amount
of clearing up after the delivery. Mary Cronk is a midwife who has helped
over 1500 babies to be born. She specialises in helping women to have
babies at home and through experience has found what she believes is best
for containing any mess from childbirth and despite what you might have
heard, it's not shower curtains.
"Not all shower curtains are actually waterproof. Some plastic ones are
of course, but many are designed not to let a shower of water hitting
them vertically through, but will leak fluids through if on the floor.
"I have found a good waterproof (and comfortable) protection is a couple
of metres of that waterproof table cloth that can be bought by the metre
at good hardware or kitchen shops. It has a cloth backing and, used cloth
side up, it is comfortable to walk on, an inco pad stays put on top of
it and the midwife does not slide around all over the place. "Any blood,
liquor, gunge, poo or meconium, that escapes the inco pads is easily sluiced
off and it can go in the washing machine on a warm or cool wash."
Practical clean-up?
If despite all your plans and preparation you still end up with blood
on your carpet, it is possible to remove it, thanks to a few tips from
the experts. Stain experts at Learn-how-to-Remove suggest two ways to
remove blood."
- Not dried in - If the stain is still fresh, you can neutralize
the blood by spraying with a solution of one teaspoon of household ammonia
in 1/2 cup of water and blotting away the excess moisture with a clean
dry cloth. Rinse with a weak solution of detergent and blot dry.
- Dried in - If the blood has dried and the stain is proving
a little tougher to shift, you can spray with 5 per cent hydrogen peroxide,
and then wait an hour before rinsing and blotting. Repeat until the
stain has gone but always remember to test on an inconspicuous area
first.
The Carpet Buyers Handbook makes an additional suggestion for removing
dried in blood. As well as stressing the need to use only cold cleaning
solutions to prevent setting the stain, they say a good rust remover is
effective in removing blood stains from carpets.
What other mums say
When it comes to advice and tips, where better to turn than others who
have first hand experience? Here's what some babyworlders
had to say about their experiences.
No drama
"Childbirth is not the blood-soaked drama you may imagine. Midwives
carry large soaker pads which they place strategically under you. These
soak up almost everything. I had a waterproof sheet on my bed, and some
old towels down, but these were hardly marked at all. There was another
old soft towel that was bloodied by cleaning the baby immediately, but
the midwives supervised my husband by putting everything in the wash before
they left, so I didn't have to deal with any of it."
Angela
No blood on the ceilings!
"The amount of mess depends on how much you walk around when in labour!
I stayed mainly in one room and gave birth on something old that was thrown
out. Everything comes out below you - you won't be getting blood on the
ceilings!"
Jessica
I didn't really see it
"There was no mess at my home birth. We put a waterproof sheet and
an old bedsheet on the bed and covered the floor in old towels. After
the birth, the midwives loaded my washing machine with the towels and
sheets saying the blood would come out of them, and they were right! Apart
from some blood on the sheets, there was no other mess as they brought
disposable pads and threw them away after the birth. There was literally
no mess within about half an hour of the birth, they cleaned it away so
fast I didn't even really see it."
Kelly
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